I am glad you mentioned it:  I would not have had you appear without your close mourning for the Duke of Devonshire upon any account.  I was once going to tell you of it, knowing your inaccuracy in such matters; but thought it still impossible you should be ignorant how necessary it is.  Lord Strafford, who has a legacy of only two hundred pounds, wrote to consult Lady Suffolk.  She told him, for such a sum, which only implies a ring,, it was sometimes not done but yet advised him to mourn.  In your case it is indispensable; nor can you see any of his family without it.  Besides it is much better on such an occasion to over, than under do.  I answer this paragraph first, because I am so earnest not to have you blamed.

Besides wishing to see you all, I have wanted exceedingly to come to you, having much to say to you; but I am confined here, that is, Mr. Chute is:  he was seized with the gout last Wednesday se’nnight, the day he came hither to meet George Montagu, and this is the first day he has been out of his bedchamber.  I must therefore put off our meeting till Saturday, when you shall certainly find me in town.

We have a report here, but the authority bitter bad, that Lord March is going to be married to Lady Conway.  I don’t believe it the less for our knowing nothing of it; for unless their daughter were breeding, and it were to save her character, neither your brother nor Lady Hertford would disclose a tittle about it.  Yet in charity they should advertise it, that parents and relations, if it is so, may lock up all knives, ropes, laudanum, and rivers, lest it should occasion a violent mortality among his fair admirers.

I am charmed with an answer I have just read in the papers of a man in Bedlam, who was ill-used by -,in apprentice because he Would not tell him why he was confined there.  The unhappy creature said at last, “Because God has deprived me of a blessing which you never enjoyed.”  There never was any thing finer or more moving!  Your sensibility will not be quite so much affected by a story I heard t’other day of Sir Fletcher Norton.  He has a mother—­yes, a mother:  perhaps you thought that, like that tender urchin Love,

——­duris in cotibus illum Ismarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes, Nec nostri generis puerum nec sanguinis edunt.

Well, Mrs. Rhodope lives in a mighty shabby hovel at Preston, which the dutiful and affectionate Sir Fletcher began to think not suitable to the dignity of one who has the honour of being his parent.  He cheapened a better, in which were two pictures which the proprietor valued at threescore pounds.  The attorney(678) insisted on having them for nothing, as fixtures--the landlord refused, the bargain was broken off, and the dowager Madam Norton remains in her original hut.  I could tell you another story which you would not dislike; but as it might hurt the person concerned, if it was known, I shall not send it by the post; but will tell you when I see you.  Adieu!